Page:A critical and exegetical commentary on Genesis (1910).djvu/372

 of the High Priesthood a Canaanitish priest-king, and that all possible pretensions of the Jerusalem hierarchy were covered by the figure of Aaron (253). It is more probable that M. is, if not a historical figure, at least a traditional figure of great antiquity, on whom the monarchy and hierarchy of Jerusalem based their dynastic and priestly rights. To the writer of Ps. 110, M. was "a type, consecrated by antiquity, to which the ideal king of Israel, ruling on the same spot, must conform" (Dri. 167); and even if that Ps. be not pre-Exilic (as Gu. supposes), but as late as the Maccabæan period, it is difficult to conceive that the type could have originated without some traditional basis.—Some writers have sought a proof of the historical character of Melkiẓedeḳ in a supposed parallel between the, , of Heb. 7$3$ and a formula several times repeated in letters (Tel Amarna) of Abdḫiba of Jerusalem to Amenophis : "Neither my father nor my mother set me in this place; the mighty arm of the king established me in my father's house." Abdḫiba might have been a successor of Melkiẓedeḳ; and it is just conceivable that Hommel is right in his conjecture that a religious formula, associated with the head of the Jerusalem sanctuary, receives from Abdḫiba a political turn, and is made use of to express his absolute dependence on the Egyptian king. But it must be observed that Abdḫiba's language is perfectly intelligible in its diplomatic sense; its agreement with the words of the NT is only partial, and may be accidental; and it is free from the air of mystery which excites interest in the latter. This, however, is not to deny the probability that the writer to the Hebrews drew his conception partly from other sources than the vv. in Gen.

'Ēl 'Elyôn.—'El, the oldest Semitic appellative for God, was frequently differentiated according to particular aspects of the divine nature, or particular local or other relations entered into by the deity: hence arose compound names like (17$1$),  (21$33$), (33$20$), (35$7$), and  (here and Ps. 78$35$). (= 'upper,' 'highest') is not uncommonly used of God in OT, either alone (Nu. 24$16$, Dt. 32$8$, Ps. 18$14$ etc.) or in combinations with or (Ps. 7$18$ (?), 47$3$ 57$3$ etc.). That it was in actual use among the Canaanites is by no means incredible: the Phœnicians had a god (Eus. Præp. Ev. i. 10, 11, 12); and there is nothing to forbid the supposition that the deity of the sanctuary of Jerusalem was worshipped under that name. On the other hand, there is nothing to prove it; and it is perhaps a more significant fact, and the first founder of Jerusalem (BJ, vi. 438).]